Spontaneous Combustion
by CatchingWind
Summary: On a dark and stormy night, our hero comes across a boy trying to save an abandoned warehouse and a girl who's calling him "Bubba." And that's the normal part. What's not so normal is that now, the boy's dead, the girl's gone MIA, and Dani's in the hospital after a bomb destroys the warehouse. So how is anything going to get done when the only three witnesses can't say anything?
1. Chapter 1

**A plot bunny I just got thanks to this NCIS episode my dad is watching. Normally, I hate NCIS (too gory for my tastes), but I'm paying less attention to the nastiness and more to what happened.**

**Part of my Dani Phantom AU* and after PP.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom or NCIS, but I do own the AU I'm using.**

_***Danny is Dani and Sam is Noah. Basically all you need to know***_

Spontaneous Combustion

She knew that she shouldn't have investigated, but how could she resist? Her heroic instincts that she'd developed over the past two years had overtaken her. She should've known that there would be consequences, but she disregarded that fact. Anything could harm her as long as it meant that a life was safe. She guessed in the dredges of her mind that there was somebody out to get her rather than somebody else, but that thought stayed back there. It meant nothing to her, seeing as there were ghosts who threatened to kill her on almost a daily basis.

And yet she went.

It was probably the most cliché location she'd ever come across – an old, abandoned warehouse in the industrial district (where the people were always kind of sketchy) on a cloudy night. Thunder rumbling quietly in the distance heralded a coming storm, and she could just barely see the flash of light that was lightning. And she was pressed up against the south wall, the one with the enormous glass window overhead. She was unseen to mortals, because she'd tapped into that wonderful advantage of invisibility. It would be better not to tip off the villain that she was there.

She slid into intangibility as well, falling gracefully through the wall behind her. Inside, the little light coming from outside streetlights and half-burnt out EXIT signs cast eerie shadows on the concrete walls and rotting wooden boxes (_Why haven't I seen the Box Ghost around here?_ she thought dryly), and occasionally, there would be a nearly inaudible thump or a whisper of wind. Normally, the scene would be enough to scare the pants off of somebody, but after dealing with a power-driven king, a blood-hungry future, and numerous other sadistic beings, she didn't even give it a second thought.

Silently, staying invisible, she tiptoed past plywood boxes and dirtied cloths and oil spills, vibrant green eyes constantly scanning the area. She knew that she wasn't the only one in the warehouse, she knew it. Call it a sixth sense (seventh if you counted her ghost sense), but she knew that there was at least one more person sneaking around. And it was her job to catch him or her.

There, in the very center of the condemned building. There was her target, rocking back and forth on his bottom, knees pulled up to his chin. He was fiddling with something on the ground, but even with her advanced sight, she couldn't make it out. It was too dark.

Carefully, she took a step forward. There was some sort of smell tickling at her nose, but she paid no mind to it. Deep in her frazzled mind, she recognized the scent, and she recognized that it may or may not be good, but she pressed forward. Anything to get a better look at that crude thing he was toying around with.

Now was the time. In the clearing, where the most light was, she reentered the visible plane and allowed the glow she'd been suppressing to wash over the culprit and his creation. The sudden light surprised him, and he whipped around at speeds faster than she'd imagined.

But she remained stoic. "What'cha doing?" she asked casually, as if she were talking to her best friend, the mayor, or her boyfriend of a little more than a year. This was no situation to get hostile.

A clap of thunder, much closer than earlier, rattled the big glass window a bit. "N-none of your business, f-freak," he stammered. He couldn't be much older than 20, maybe even her older sister's age. What was he doing in a place like this?

"Who're you calling freak?" she asked, still acting as if this were an everyday experience for her. Which, in some ways, it was.

"W-well," he muttered, turning back to his work, "you are a h-hybrid."

"True… But still. What are you doing?"

"I-I already told you!"

"_Hey!"_

The arrival of a new voice startled them both. They turned towards the wall with the big window to see a girl, about the boy's age. Her voice sounded like that of an 80-year-old's, though, due to childhood smoking.

Her frenzied brown eyes met the sixteen-year-old's. "You weren't supposed to be here, freak," she rasped out.

"Jeez, is it pick on the ghost girl day?" said girl asked sarcastically.

The intruder surged forward. "This is no time for jokes!" She noticed the boy, shivering on the cold, concrete floor. "And you!" She swooped down and snatched him up by the collar of his shirt. "You actually fell for it?"

"Wait, fell for what?" The resident half-ghost was now confused.

The glare that the boy's captor sent her was more than bone-chilling. "You stay out of this," she hissed. Her attention turned to the frightened male. "I thought you weren't this gullible, Bubba. Or as stupid. You of all people should know that you can't take that apart." She nodded her head towards the object lying untouched on the ground.

Subtly, the white-haired girl leaned forward a little. The thing seemed to be a simple black box, with wires and zip-ties and other gadgets she couldn't identify. It looked like what she'd seen a million times on TV, but thought never existed. What gave her the final clue was the digital clock, the blocky, red letters counting down.

"A bomb?" she whispered quietly. This was more serious than she thought.

The older girl heard her. "You got that right, freak. And Bubba here thought that he could diffuse it."

"I don't blame him for trying."

The numbers flashed to :46. Not much time left.

"S-somebody's gonna get hurt, Amy!" the boy said frantically. He obviously noticed the ticking clock as well.

Amy threw her head back and laughed sharply. Outside, a bolt of lightning flitted through the darkened sky, closely followed by a loud clap of thunder that almost shook the entire building. "Duh, Bubba! That's the whole point!"

:29…

Amy's eyes shifted to the clock. "You know what? You both will be dead in a few seconds anyway. It doesn't matter. I'm outta here."

She dropped the boy on the ground, and his head bounced against the concrete floor harshly. The hero of Amity Park bent down immediately to check on him, and she saw Amy sprint off and out of the warehouse.

"Hey!" said the sixteen-year-old worriedly. His eyes would not open, and something dark was pooling on the ground beneath his short, brown hair. "Hey, are you okay?"

:11…

There was no time to consider anything else. She snatched up the unconscious boy and began to fly up and out, only to smack right into a stack of boxes that had been hiding in the shadows. She lost her grip on the boy, and he plummeted to the ground for the second time in mere moments. She heard his head crack against the concrete ten feet below and, sadly, figured he had no chance. Only by a miracle would somebody of his age be able to withstand two hard blows to the head.

Yet she bolted back down towards the ground to retrieve his limp body. He didn't deserve to be lost to the fatality of an explosion. Nobody did.

Except for maybe that Amy girl…

Without any warning, however, orange light erupted behind her, a blast louder than a jet rattled her brain and jaw, and the glass window above shattered into a million pieces.

Her vision was black in moments. There was no chance of her or the doomed boy escaping now. The last memory she had, however, was a whispery, raspy voice saying, "_Welcome to the end is near…_"

**Yup. I blowed her up. :)**

**Aw, don't worry. This isn't the end. I think. I **_**could **_**leave this as a one-shot if y'all want, but I highly doubt that.**

**Tell me what you think!**

**-CatchingWind**


	2. Hiatus Note

**Okay. I know I should be updating, but I need to do this. It's not something I can put off any longer, because otherwise, I'll feel guilty.**

**I'm going on extended hiatus, and possibly permanently leaving FanFiction. I haven't decided on the latter yet. But I need to get my heart straight and I have too many other things that need to come before this.**

**Don't get me wrong, I love writing these stories. But I'm beginning to have a change of heart and I'm wondering if it's the right thing for me to be doing. That, and I have had absolutely no inspiration lately for these stories.**

**And like I said, I have too many other priorities. I have to start actually doing my homework (I just don't do my homework for some reason…) and I have to deal with moving into an actual house at the end of March. Plus I'm having boy miscommunication on my end, and I can't figure out if I've been friend-zoned or if it's something else. I also have a crap load of band stuff to be practicing, especially if I have any hope of getting into an upper class band next year in high school. Speaking of which, I also have to get my high school mind straight and start getting serious about preparing for my freshman year, so… yeah.**

**That's most of what I have to worry about, but definitely not all. Unfortunately, FanFiction is something that I can remove from my life, and I am. Like I said before, it's not necessarily permanent, but it may be.**

**In case if it is permanent, I'd like to thank everybody who's supported me throughout my time here and who has reviewed. I remember getting so thrilled whenever I received a review, and I do today. And it's thanks to you guys who have been loyal to me.**

**But hopefully, this isn't totally goodbye. I hope it isn't, but it may.**

**As for my stories, if I haven't returned by April 30****th****, all of them will be up for adoption. You don't even have to ask permission or anything, because you already have it. As long as you give me credit, I'm good.**

**Thank you so much guys, and I hope to be writing for you again soon.**

**-CatchingWind**


End file.
